In the course of his extended career Mr. Wintermuth had been called
upon to face many serious and unexpected crises. Conflagrations; rate
wars; eruptions of idiotic and ruinous legislation adopted by state
senates and assemblies composed of meddlesome agriculturalists, saloon
keepers, impractical young lawyers, and intensely practical old
politicians;--all these he had lived through not once, but often, and
had always piloted the Guardian's bark to port in safety. In fact, he
had done this with such aplomb that long ago he had dismissed from his
mind such a thing as the possibility of a wave insurmountable.
In his first flush of anger against O'Connor's betrayal--for by Mr.
Wintermuth the action of his Vice-President could not otherwise be
regarded--he had but one thought, and that was to make O'Connor's act
recoil upon his own head. At that time, however, he was still in
ignorance of the full scope of the betrayal, and when the element of
bitter personal resentment had largely faded out, his pride and dignity
reasserted themselves and bade him choose a different course. Let
O'Connor go his way--inevitably justice would overtake him. After all,
the first duty was to the company, and the first thing to be done was
to fill O'Connor's place.
The cardinal principle of Mr. Wintermuth's administration of the
Guardian, during all the years he had been chief executive, had been
that all vacancies be filled by promotion of the company's own men.
All those who occupied positions of responsibility with the Guardian
had come up from the ranks, and it was one of the President's favorite
themes for self-congratulation that it had always been possible to fill
every opening without going outside the home office.
Unfortunately, however, of late years the current flowing toward the
top had been rather clogged by the unusual pertinacity of the
incumbents of important places. O'Connor, Bartels, Wagstaff--for years
undisturbed all these had held their positions. Even Smith, the
youngest man to occupy a place of trust, had been in his present
capacity for quite a while. And the natural result of this was that
new material in the company, or at least material capable of
advancement and development, was painfully scarce.
Bartels was not an underwriter at all, but an accountant, and it was
inconceivable that he would ever be anything else. Wagstaff, who
supervised the Southern and a part of the Western field, was a good
enough machine man, capable in a routine way and within his
limitations, but helpless outside them; he had no initiative, wholly
lacked dash and imagination, and it was out of the question that he be
given charge of the general underwriting of the company, even under
such a chief as Mr. Wintermuth. Cuyler, the head of the local
department, was a city underwriter pure and simple; his knowledge and
his interest stopped short where the jurisdiction of the New York
Exchange ended; he knew no more, nor did he care for anything else.
There remained but one possibility--Smith. And Smith was very young.
There had been few or no cases in the annals of fire insurance where
the underwriting of such a company as the Guardian had been placed in
the hands of a man scarcely turned thirty. Mr. Wintermuth, going over
the situation carefully, began to wish that he had looked a little
farther into the future. A sharp sense of indecision came disagreeably
to him, and very reluctantly he reached the conclusion that he did not
quite know what to do.
By his order a special meeting of the directors had been called for the
next morning, and for the intervening hours he possessed his soul in
what patience he could command. If the reflection occurred to him that
perhaps it would have been wiser to retain O'Connor until his successor
could be selected, he dismissed it at once. The company would have to
go on as best it could without a vice-president until such time as the
proper man could be found.
It was ten-thirty to the minute when Mr. Wintermuth took the chair and
looked about the table at his board. Eleven directors in all,
including the President, were in attendance; and although no one except
Mr. Wintermuth knew why they had been called together, there was an
undercurrent of concern among those present. This was soon
crystallized, for Mr. Wintermuth's opening words wakened the active
interest and lively perturbation of every man.
"Gentlemen," he said, "this meeting has been called as the result of my
having received the following letter. 'James Wintermuth, Esq., and so
forth--I hereby tender my resignation as Vice-President of the Guardian
Fire Insurance Company of New York, to take effect on December
thirty-first or on such earlier date as may suit your convenience.
Signed, F. Mills O'Connor.' That is the letter, and so far as I am
concerned, that closes the matter, except for the vote whereby I ask
you gentlemen to confirm my action in accepting Mr. O'Connor's
resignation--as of yesterday morning."
There was no discussion, and the vote was taken.
"Now," continued Mr. Wintermuth, "the office of Vice-president has been
declared vacant, and I will request your consideration of the filling
of the vacancy. As you know, it has always been the policy of the
Guardian to fill all vacancies, official and otherwise, by the
promotion of its own men. It is my own belief that this is the only
satisfactory and in fact the only honorable system. But Mr. O'Connor's
resignation was so unexpected as to leave us unprepared--perhaps more
so than we should have been--and it now seems as though a deviation
from our usual course might be forced upon us."
He then very briefly acquainted them with the qualities of the men
under O'Connor in much the same way that he had reviewed them in his
own mind. The directors listened in silence. In short, silence was
their only possible attitude, for the contingency which now confronted
them was one which took them wholly by surprise.
"To sum up the situation," Mr. Wintermuth concluded, "there is only one
man now in the employ of the company who is qualified to fill the
vice-presidency, and that is Richard Smith, our present General Agent."
He hesitated. Personally he would have been glad to go farther and
recommend Smith for the position, but in his own mind he was not
convinced of the wisdom of this.
"Isn't he pretty young?" inquired Mr. Whitehill, of Whitehill and
Rhodes, the large real estate operators, who sat at Mr. Wintermuth's
right.
"Yes, he is. I'm afraid he's almost too young," was the frank reply.
"How old is he, anyway?" another director asked.
"Thirty-two or thereabouts, I believe. But he's had good training."
"He won't do," said Mr. Whitehill, tersely. "The man for that job
ought to be more seasoned--at least forty. Don't you agree with me?"
"I'm afraid I do," the President conceded, rather reluctantly. "At
least I am afraid that Smith, good underwriter as he is, needs--as you
say--a little more seasoning before being given so responsible a
position."
"What's the alternative?" inquired Mr. Griswold, from the other end of
the table.
"The alternative," answered Mr. Wintermuth, "is one which I like little
better. It is to go outside and hire an underwriter from somewhere
else."
"Do you know a good man--one we could get?"
"There are always plenty available if you look in the right place--and
back up your invitation with a sufficient monetary inducement," said
the President, a trifle caustically. "Little as I myself fancy the
idea, it seems to me that it is what we shall have to do. Unless," he
added, "you gentlemen should decide to risk giving Smith a chance."
"I'm in favor of going outside," Mr. Whitehill announced. "I've met
Smith, and he's a nice clean-cut young fellow, but it would be an
injustice to put him in such a place and expect him to make good. He's
too much of a kid for such a job with a company like the Guardian."
There was a murmur, whether of approval or of passive acquiescence
could not be told.
"Thirty-five is the minimum age for the President of the United
States," suggested Mr. Wintermuth, detachedly.
"Well, thirty-five is quite young enough," retorted Mr. Whitehill.
"Give the boy a few years' time. I say, hire an underwriter outside."
The President turned to face the table.
"I take it, then, that it is the wish of the Board that the company's
rule regarding office promotions be waived in this instance. But we
must remember--as I have always maintained--that it has a discouraging
effect on loyalty and ambition, to import material to fill important
places. However, it is for you gentlemen to decide."
"Have you thought of anyone for the position?" inquired one.
"Not seriously," responded the President. "I have scarcely had time.
There are of course plenty of men we might get, but I have really not
felt like considering the question of their relative desirability
before submitting the matter to you."
"I heard a speech last week," said Mr. Griswold, "by some man who
wanted to reduce the fire waste of the whole country. It was delivered
before the Chamber of Commerce in Plainfield, New Jersey, where I
live--I occasionally attend their meetings. He's got something to do
with a Chicago company. I think his name is Lyon. He impressed me as
being a clever talker. Do you know anything about him?"
"Oh, yes," replied Mr. Wintermuth, with a smile. "You mean Charles
Lyon. He is President of the Liberty Fire--quite a new company. He
_is_ a clever talker--they say he can talk a bird out of a tree. To
have organized the Liberty and gotten it started with real cash paid in
was a distinct personal achievement. But I'm afraid he's a better
promoter than an underwriter; the Liberty has been losing money at an
astonishing rate ever since it actually commenced to write business.
If he succeeds in cutting the fire waste of the country in two, his own
company may survive and may even share in the benefits, although
probably not to a disproportionate extent. But I'm afraid he's too
much of a philanthropist--a little too unselfish for us. We want an
underwriter, not a philanthropist--some one more interested in keeping
down the losses of the Guardian Fire Insurance Company than those of
the United States of America. And I imagine that Lyon at present would
stick to the Liberty anyway, although I fancy he will be open for a new
position before very long."
"Well, I move that the President be empowered to hunt up the most
likely candidate he can find for Mr. O'Connor's position," said Mr.
Whitehill, and the motion was carried. An adjournment was taken for a
week, or until such time as Mr. Wintermuth should have a candidate
ready for consideration.
There was one decided drawback to the successful accomplishment of the
task to which Mr. Wintermuth now addressed himself. This was the fact
that the Guardian was not disposed to pay exorbitantly for an
underwriting head. It was willing to pay a reasonable salary, but it
was not a corporation of unlimited resources or gigantic income, and
the expense ratio had perforce to be considered. Plenty of men whose
names occurred to the President would have been competent and in every
way eligible, but they were men of recognized standing in the
profession, and already occupied positions of trust. It is not often
that highly capable men are open to change without unusual inducement,
and Mr. Wintermuth, scanning the ranks of possibilities, found them
dishearteningly scanty. All the men he wanted, he knew perfectly well
could not be detached from their present allegiances, and the men who
were detachable he didn't want. Moreover, it had been a good many
years since Mr. Wintermuth had been actively at work in the field. The
men with whose character and ability he was most familiar were too
advanced in age; the younger generation he did not know.
Virgil and several others of the early classic authors have commented
upon the surprising swiftness with which common rumor travels. If its
speed was provocative of comment in those bygone days, which lacked
most of the accelerating features now found on every hand, it should
certainly fare far faster at the present time. At any rate, no tidings
ever spread through the subliminal Chinese empire, warning of Magyar
hordes beyond the Wall, with greater celerity than the news of Mr.
Wintermuth's quest through the insurance world. The waves of it rolled
echoing from office to office, from special agent to special agent,
from city to city.
Like vultures out of an empty sky came the effects. Circumspect as Mr.
Wintermuth had been, keeping the object of his search as secret as
might be, it was not more than four days before he was driven ruefully
to reflect that he might just as well have put an advertisement in the
paper. Apparently everybody in the insurance world, including
especially the insurance editor of the paper in which he did not
advertise, knew he had decided to go outside his own office for a
managing underwriter; and apparently every person within reach had some
one--usually himself--to recommend for the position. Mr. Wintermuth
finally found it necessary to deny himself to aspiring applicants who
besieged his office, and went out on a still hunt in the lanes and
byways where he was less likely to meet people with axes to grind. It
was on one of these excursions, in a most natural and unpremeditated
manner, that he found himself confronted by Mr. Samuel Gunterson.
Mr. Gunterson had, it was true, been suggested as a possibility, but
through an outside source which Mr. Wintermuth felt sure was most
unlikely to have been stimulated to the suggestion by the person most
interested. The President was in a mood of despondency, incidental to
the painful discovery of how frail a tissue of truth most of the
recommendations of his applicants' supporters usually possessed. He
had spent four days investigating the records of men whose names,
enthusiastically presented to him, proved to be the only commendable
thing about them. Now, after this discouraging experience, he hailed
the prospect of independent selection with relief. It was with much
lightened depression that he recognized that Mr. Gunterson was
not--actively, at least--endeavoring to secure for himself the Guardian
appointment, but seemed, on the contrary, quite well contented in his
present position, and Mr. Wintermuth settled down to overtures with
almost his customary cheerfulness.
Mr. Samuel Gunterson was, at this period of his highly variegated
underwriting career, some forty-six years of age. A life whose private
character no journal had as yet been tempted to divulge had left no
trace upon the impassive contour of his face nor on the somber dignity
of his bearing. He was of middle height, and somewhat stout, his hair
was iron-gray, and he carried himself with a sort of restrained or
reflective optimism, as though he forced himself to be cheerful and
companionable at the cost of untold anguish to an inner ego that no one
knew. It was an effective carriage, and few people attempted to take
liberties with its possessor.
During his experience in the fire insurance business Mr. Gunterson had
contrived to become connected with and separated from more different
concerns than could be readily computed. He had averaged somewhat
better than one change bi-yearly, and the history of his peregrinations
could never have been written, for no one but himself could have
furnished the necessary material, and on all matters concerning himself
Mr. Gunterson was as cryptic as were the Delphic oracles of old. He
chose to consider himself a victim of an astonishing series of
circumstances, and in a certain sense this was true, although the
circumstances were largely of his own creation. Good companies and
bad, established concerns and promoters' flotations, auspicious
ventures and forlorn hopes--he had been associated with them all, and
from each one he emerged with untroubled calm while the unhappy
machine, its steering gear usually crippled by his hand alone, went
plunging downhill over the cliff into the soundless waters of oblivion.
Mr. Gunterson had been either President or underwriting manager of the
Eureka Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, whose demise scarcely surprised
those who were aware that its remarkable popularity with its agents was
mainly due to the willingness with which it accepted their bad business
in almost unlimited quantities; of the Florida Fire and Marine, whose
annual premium income of about eight times the amount warranted by its
resources attracted the thoughtful attention, although scarcely the
respect, of some of the leading underwriters in New York; of the United
of Omaha, whose heavy investment in the bonds of a subsequently
exploded copper company promoted by Mr. Gunterson's brother-in-law
precipitated its insolvency even before its underwriting losses could
overtake it; of the Planters of Oklahoma, which the Insurance
Commissioner of Massachusetts one day examined with the interesting
discovery that its liabilities were nearly three times its assets; and
of the Constitution Fire of Washington, D.C., which ceased to issue
policies by request of the United States Government. From each of
these unfortunate endeavors Mr. Gunterson had emerged with unblemished
reputation, and even enhanced gravity and authority due to his wider
experience, and with his air of slightly melancholy urbanity diminished
not at all.
Four years prior to the time when fate led Mr. Wintermuth to his door,
he had been the nerve if not the brains of the general agency of Hill
and Daggett of William Street, representing in an extensive territory a
fleet of some seven small companies with more sporting spirit than
assets, and his astute helmsmanship had resulted in running all seven
soundly and irrevocably upon the rocks. From the wreck he emerged, in
the first lifeboat to leave, with his broad white brow as untroubled
and serene as ever. The collapse, however, left him without visible
means of support, so he took a short trip abroad, returning in a month
or two as the American manager of a large German company which was just
entering the United States.
It is doubtful by what, if any, method these Continental-European
companies select their representatives in this country. Ability and
probity seem to be regarded lightly--as scarcely worth careful
investigation. But no well-known man whose lack of success has left
unimpaired his fluency of speech need despair. So long as new foreign
companies continue to establish American branches and appoint managers,
any amiable detrimental with sufficient verbosity may secure for
himself a comfortable berth. Mr. Gunterson had now for almost two
years been in charge of the United States business of the
Elsass-Lothringen on a loss ratio so surprisingly satisfactory that he
himself was absolutely at a loss to explain it. For the first time in
a considerable period he felt himself to be in a strong strategic
position, and he received Mr. Wintermuth in what only his extreme
courtesy prevented from being an offhand manner. It was obvious that
he had no intention nor desire to meet any one halfway.
Now Mr. Wintermuth had always held that a man too anxious to change his
affiliations was no proper man for the Guardian, and this indifference
of Mr. Gunterson pleased him. It further developed that Mr. Gunterson
had at last, in the Elsass-Lothringen, found almost what he had always
been seeking; his company gave him an entirely free hand,--a highly
desirable thing for an underwriting manager,--and he did not know
whether he should ever care about looking for anything else. At the
psychological moment he nonchalantly displayed to Mr. Wintermuth's
interested gaze his twenty-two per cent loss ratio for the
Elsass-Lothringen, but in the next breath, recalling a few recent
preliminary tremors unpleasantly suggestive of other catastrophes
through which he had passed, and not to overlook a link in his
entangling chain, he stated that after all, though, he was an American,
and intimated that as such he sometimes felt he would a little rather
devote himself to the interests of an American underwriting
institution. Only occasionally did he have this feeling--still, it was
there, and he must needs admit it.
Such was the man to whom Mr. Wintermuth had come, and to whom he
ultimately extended an invitation to present himself for the
consideration of the Guardian's directorate. And Mr. Gunterson,
uneasily suspecting that the structure of the German institution might
at any moment collapse at some quite unexpected point, and calculating
that he might secure the managerial berth for his equally inefficient
brother-in-law, and thus keep the salary in the family, cautiously
accepted the invitation. So this was the man who, a few days later,
faced the full board, who with affable confidence in his own abilities
won over even the somewhat skeptical Whitehill, and who was, on the
ninth day of December, 1912, elected Vice-President and underwriting
manager of the Guardian Fire Insurance Company of New York.
He guaranteed to free himself from his Teutonic engagements and
alliances in time to join the Guardian by the first of January. Suave
and profound, with his grave glance suggesting unutterable depth, he
bowed himself out of the presence of Mr. Wintermuth and the other
directors. And the ruminative elevator carried to the street level the
best satisfied man in New York.
At once the appointment was made public, and newspapers and individuals
alike refrained from expressing what the better informed among them
feared and expected. Mr. Wintermuth heard nothing on every hand but
flattering comments on his own acumen, and praises of the sterling
qualities and experience of his new appointee. In fact, the insurance
press as a whole spoke of Mr. Gunterson almost as kindly as though he
had died, and it was--unofficially--understood that Mr. O'Connor
realized that he had made a great mistake. Mr. O'Connor, however,
having with considerable satisfaction moved into the Salamander's big
room with "President" in brass letters on the door, ably restrained any
irritation he may have felt. Privately he assured Mr. Murch that
things could not have turned out better if he had ordered them himself.
"Gunterson is the very man for our purposes," he said. "He's a stuffed
shirt if there ever was one. I couldn't have made a better
appointment--for us--myself. We can bleed the Guardian of every
desirable agent they've got, and he won't know how to stop us."
And Mr. Murch, smiling, suggested that the bleeding begin as soon as
possible.
In the Guardian itself, opinion was divided. No one in the office knew
much, if anything, about the new underwriter, and most of the men were
inclined, in view of Mr. Wintermuth's recommendation, to take him at
his own assessed valuation. But not so Wagstaff, and not so Smith.
Wagstaff because it hung in his memory how, many years before, this
same Gunterson had by rather questionable methods worsted him in a
transaction affecting a schedule of cotton compresses in Georgia; Smith
because he believed Mr. Gunterson to be a fraud of such monumental
proportions that he deserved a place among the storied charlatans of
the world.
His company and its reputation being more to Smith than almost anything
else, he felt this thing very nearly in the light of a tragedy.
Gloomily regarding the prospect, all he could see ahead was trouble and
disgrace. And he knew that his own hands were tied. He was of course
only an employee of the company, which could select as officers whom it
chose, and any protest from him would very properly be disregarded--and
worse than that, he would naturally and inevitably be suspected of
speaking once for the company and twice for himself.
It was a rather troubled face that in spite of himself he presented in
Washington Square North an evening or two after that eventful ninth of
December.
"What is the matter with you? You look too discouraged for words,"
Helen told him, when the conversation was barely begun.
"Do I show it as plainly as that?" he replied, somewhat ruefully.
"Well, I'll admit that, funereal as I may look, it's not a circumstance
to the way I feel. That's partly why I came here--to see you and be
cheered up."
Somewhere down in the still, chill Boston archives of Miss Maitland's
supposedly well-schooled emotions a little quiver awoke and stirred.
This was quite without warrant or suggestion from the girl herself, and
she strove to convince herself that no stir had been felt.
Unfortunately, however, she had received that day a letter from her
mother bringing her to a decision which she must now convey to the man
before her, and she felt a flash of almost reckless curiosity to see
how he would receive it.
"If I were a horrible egotist," she said lightly, "I should think that
a little part of your depression came from anticipating that I was
going to tell you I am going back home next week."
Smith looked at her in silence. He looked at her until she felt the
pause and broke again into speech.
"You see, I have to get back to be with mother at Christmas, and there
are a lot of things to do before then--" she began, but he interrupted
her.
"I said I came here to be cheered up--and that is what you tell me!" he
said. "I came up here half hoping to be soothed back into my customary
optimism--and this is what I get! This is certainly an accursed month
in an accursed year!"
It occurred to Helen that, regarding the matter strictly from a
standpoint of gallantry, the year wherein a young man met her and
successfully won her friendship should not properly be termed in all
ways and wholly accursed. She scarcely felt like pointing this out,
however; and the compliment of Smith's real concern at her departure
would compensate for a little gaucherie of expression. As though he
had read her thought, Smith spoke again, this time with all trace of
the sardonic gone from his tone.
"I beg your pardon--I didn't mean that," he said. "It has been a fine
year. I won't revile it just because it ends with a double
catastrophe. How soon do you expect to leave?"
"The end of next week, I think," the girl answered. There was an
expression in his eyes which she did not quite understand, and
therefore distrusted; and she hurriedly turned the conversation into
another channel.
"If you flatter me by regarding my departure as one catastrophe, what
is the other?" she asked. "What has happened? Is it something to do
with O'Connor?"
"Well, it's all part of the same thing, I suppose," he said. "I had
almost forgotten O'Connor, though, since Gunterson drove him out of my
head."
"Who or what is Gunterson, please?"
Smith told her.
"If O'Connor can get the Eastern Conference to put through a separation
rule now, we're absolutely helpless," he concluded. "Gunterson
wouldn't have the vaguest idea of what to do--and wouldn't let any one
else tell him. I can pretty nearly see the Guardian, under Samuel
Gunterson's suicidal direction, setting sail with all flags flying, and
heading straight for the bottom of the sea."
Helen could think of nothing to say.
"And you are leaving for Boston!" Smith added. "Well, it looks to me
as though I might be out of a job before long, and perhaps I'll come up
to Boston and strike your Uncle Silas for one. I think Mr. Osgood
always rather liked me. And Boston's a pretty good town--or will be
after next week."
He spoke a little bitterly, for it seemed that the possibility he
mentioned was perhaps not so remote, after all. Even if the Guardian
survived the staggering load of its Vice-President, he felt that he
could not serve very long under such a man as Gunterson. And if such a
thing should come to pass, he would be in no position to hope as he was
now hoping, or to dream as he was now dreaming. Yet, after all, no
wall that was ever built can shut out dreams.